


a secret of the sea

by crimtastic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Bad Ideas, Blood and Gore, Choices, F/M, I Tried, Mind Control, Not Canon Compliant, Ocean, Octomaid, Sign Language, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24967579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimtastic/pseuds/crimtastic
Summary: Ambient light spilled from the end of the tunnel. Clicking his flashlight off, Clint pocketed it and perked up as the hints of a song hit his ears, just barely. It was sorrowful, pained, and Clint found his feet tripping over the uneven rocks in haste. The suspicion that had been mounting during this entire chase disappeared. Maybe instead of being a mole, Darcy Lewis had been abducted against her will, dragged to this godforsaken cave to be tortured. Maybe she just needed a vacation and had decided to take up seaside spelunking. On her own. In the dark. During a storm.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 22
Kudos: 93





	a secret of the sea

* * *

The week had started normally for Clint. Oversee various cadets vying for positions at the base, dig into their histories, weed out the redundant. He was in a meeting with Coulson, discussing their options, when the phone rang on his desk. The call sent him to the science wing of the building - a place he usually only went during patrols - right into the worried expression of one of the bases’ best astrophysicists, Dr. Jane Foster.

“It’s my assistant, Darcy. She’s missing.”

“Think someone took her?” Clint asked, churning names of organizations with interest in Foster’s work. AIM? Hydra? The possibilities racked up in his head.

Dr. Foster shook her head. “I don’t think so. She looked sick, could barely keep her balance, so I told her to have a driver take her home-” Clint frowned, offended by the security risk of living off base, “-but she didn’t call me when she got home and her phone goes straight to voicemail.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Since this morning,” Jane responded. Clint frowned. That meant she had only been gone a few hours.

Jane caught his expression and continued. “I know it seems silly to raise the alarm so early, but trust me, it’s not like Darcy to not check in. She’s the one making sure **I** follow protocol, she’s not about to skip it herself.”

Well, if Dr. Foster was concerned, it warranted investigation. Clint hadn’t met Darcy Lewis personally and could count the things he knew about her on one hand. She was involved in Thor’s introduction to Earth, she had decent clearance for a civilian, and was very good at her job if the grapevine was to be believed. 

However, when he pulled up the file SHIELD had on Darcy, he was surprised and annoyed. It was short. _Embarrassingly_ short. Clint skimmed over it and found the lack of details... fishy. No family to speak of, no history prior to her few semesters at Culver before being picked up by Dr. Foster. She was an oddity in their decades old system and there _should_ have been some record of her - a birth certificate, high school transcripts, dental records, _something._

But there was almost nothing.

How the _devil_ did she have SHIELD clearance at all?

Clint started his search at her home - a small, square mid-century style house with a carport on the edge of town - and found it deserted. Splatters of a strange blue substance was on the pavement with more of it on the unlocked front door knob, kicking up his concern. He noted that the interior was tidy, undisturbed, except for an upended jewelry box on her bedroom floor. It was empty with an indent of an object. A pendant, perhaps, or key. Fortunately, his phone then pinged with the information he’d asked for from the tech department.

Pulling it up, a map displayed where he could see her heading east, GPS pinging merrily away until landing at the Atlantic coast. There was no direct sign of her being under immediate danger, which meant he had to drive as well, speeding the entire way to make better time. He regretted it as the hours ticked by, but couldn’t imagine convincing Coulson to give him a jet to jaunt over to the beach for a wayward office assistant without more cause.

How had she travelled so far if she had been as ill as Foster claimed? As more time went on, Clint became more and more convinced of Darcy Lewis being planted by an unknown enemy. But she had no known connections save for the handful at the highly secretive base and her phone was clean every inspection. It didn’t make sense for her to just leave unless something went wrong. Dr. Foster hadn’t mentioned missing anything critical, instead she was inordinately worried about her assistant.

It didn’t make sense.

His routine week had obviously turned for the worst by him having to chase the mystery of Darcy Lewis over three states. Night had fallen by the time Clint turned his car into a deserted parking lot, the windshield wipers working the torrents of rain from the glass. He parked next to the maroon car he’d been looking for, right next to the beach access. Throwing the gear in park, he grabbed his bow from the back seat before glaring out at the ocean, barely visible from his headlights as a storm raged overhead.

“It had to be storming,” Clint muttered to himself as he looked up through his window at the turbulent night sky, clicking a flashlight on. Exiting his car, he hooked his bow on his back and ignored the torrent of rain pattering onto his jacket.

Shining the torch into her car, he could see it was unlocked with her phone dead on the middle console, obviously forgotten in haste to leave the vehicle. Clint shined his torch to the ground which was unfortunately washed of any footprints. However, there were splatters of that blue substance under the driver door, thicker, resistant to the heavy drops that landed on it.

_What the hell?_

Clint followed the substance down the rocky steps to the sea, uneasiness growing in his gut. While he’d seen strange places for such rendezvous, they usually were in the middle of crowds, with daylight and cheering, lost in the haystack of the masses. This felt downright ominous in comparison.

Squinting through the rain, he followed the substance around a bend, straight to a cave that yawned into the cove. Waves crashed at the entrance, causing his hearing aids to automatically adjust to the roaring sound and filter it down. It looked like a decidedly bad idea to enter, but he still found himself climbing inside. Seawater soaked Clint up to his thighs, a curse escaping him at the chill. Regardless, his torch reflected more of that blue substance low on the rocky walls and he continued to follow it.

Ambient light spilled from the end of the tunnel. Clicking his flashlight off, he pocketed it and perked up as hints of a song hit his ears, just barely. It was sorrowful, pained, and Clint found his feet tripping over the uneven rocks in sudden haste to reach the end. The suspicion that had built during this entire chase disappeared. Maybe instead of being a mole, Darcy Lewis had been abducted against her will, dragged to this godforsaken cave to be tortured. Maybe she just needed a vacation and had decided to take up oceanside spelunking. On her own. In the dark. During a storm.

The song stopped and Clint felt the hook of urgency untangle from his gut, dread rising to new levels. Shaking his head to disregard conflicting thoughts - he had a job to do, damn it - Clint peered within and saw a woman in the middle of a pool, sobbing quietly on a large rock over her bent legs. 

Wet, dark hair coiled against her bare back that glowed by a strange light. It seemed to emit from some sort of orb nestled between various stalactites in the ceiling, pouring over her. Breath hitching in his chest, Clint had learned to distrust his heart pounding in exhilaration - _she’s beautiful_ \- and carefully unhooked his bow from his back, easing an arrow out of the quiver to set on the notch, unsure if this was some sort of ambush. It was best to be ready.

He took a slow step in, keeping to the shadows of the room, next to a rather large stalagmite. She had a vial dangling by a chain in her palm, and she reached down to her hip, tears spilling over her hands. Jabbing her thumbs into the flesh of her thigh, she gasped out a cry, tearing apart her skin down her leg like a zipper.

_What the fuck?_

Clint crouched low, horrified and fascinated as her sobs echoed through the room. She worked diligently, dark blood spurting over her hands as she ripped all the way to her knee. The scene continued with her copying the move on her other leg and he was morbidly captivated at the sheer _strength_ required to rip apart one’s own limb…

The rock was drenched in her blood, her _blue_ blood, Clint realized as she drew a deep breath and hummed out a note. A sensation of relief, comfort, softness, all wrapped together hit his chest and knocked him over, breaking a chunk of the stalagmite off. Startled, she shrieked and the vial was flung into the water while her legs burst apart, revealing a set of dusty blue tentacles.

He stared. The tentacles wriggled rather feebly. His eyes followed them up to her hip which shifted to a pale waist. His stare continued up to her bare back until finally resting on the furious expression of Darcy Lewis, glaring at him over her shoulder. 

“What… what the fuck?” he muttered, scratching his scalp roughly. “That’s… uh.” He had seen some gruesome things in his work before. This was definitely more than he’d anticipated.

Darcy flipped him off, twisting off the rock and disappearing into the pool of water surrounding it. Clint was surprised at the depth of the water. Feeling sluggish, he straightened and did a cursory glance around the room, thinking she might try to evade him yet again, but as far as he could tell the shallow tunnel was the only exit.

The large rock had remnants of her legs still strewn over it, rooting him in the reality that, yes, the woman he had been searching for had just torn apart her own lower limbs and discarded them.

Darcy appeared at his feet, startling him into aiming his bow down at her. Bobbing in the water, she motioned at him in jerking, angry movements. Clint took a moment to realize she was _signing_.

 _-will you leave, you dumb fuck-_ He stiffened, affronted. - _you can shoot me now, I can’t talk, because I don’t want **you** , but you remain...-_

“And to think I figured you were selling secrets,” he said. She raised herself up, truly offended.

- _Why would I?_ -

They were on an uneven field here, Clint realized, and he had the low ground. Despite aiming his bow straight down at her, her eyes were flashing up at him, daring him to shoot her.

The moment hung.

- _Leave,_ \- she signed.

Clint chewed on the request - nay, the demand - and lowered his bow. Sitting down, he sent her a quick pinch of his fingers, a solid _no_. He wanted to ask when she learned to sign - a vital detail missing from her SHIELD record - and how she’d kept hidden in plain sight for so long. He wanted to ask what she planned on doing now that she was half of a sea creature. She had to have a plan, right?

Instead he felt them tumble out of his head as she pulled herself from the water to perch on the rocky edge, chest covered by her long hair that stuck to the skin all the way to her belly. Cursing inside his head, Clint knew better than to let himself become distracted. He missed half of her irate signs, the position easier for her to convey her information.

- _...I left, I didn’t want alarms and can see I was right,-_ Darcy roller her eyes, - _couldn’t stay, would be discovered, stronger when unskinned...-_

“So you-” Clint spat out the next word, “- _control_ people with your voice?” He couldn’t keep the disgust out. He’d been mind controlled before. There was no _jeering_. Just dread as he watched his hands shred the very institution he’d help build. Horror as his hands had injured friends.

Instead of answering him with signs, Darcy leaned over and let out a breathy hum.

Clint felt that solitary note yank his heart up to his throat, an elation gasping out of him for the single moment. He spluttered, sound interrupting the hook into his mind. She stopped, noting his distress as the idea that one could feel _cheerful_ about doing the misdeeds sank like a stone in his gut.

Darcy was curious. _-You fight more than most._ -

“Damn straight,” Clint grumbled, rubbing his temple as he tried to rein the way his heart raced. She hadn't answered his question about _control_ but he found himself wary of asking for more clarification. “So you fled to avoid a scene. Why work with Dr. Foster if you aren’t trying to undermine-”

- _Undermine? No, I help her,_ \- Darcy bristled. - _Jane is my best friend and I help…-_

A laugh barked out of him, pausing her motions. “Bold claim there, Ursula, with _friends_. Why would you care if not to steal?”

She clicked her tongue in disapproval.

- _That story is outdated. The unfamiliar are easy to vilify._ \- Clint frowned. - _I wanted to **help**. My kind wanted to find why our ocean is warming. Granted, Jane is looking beyond our planet’s border, but there could be a solution…_-

She stopped, before shaking her head. - _I thought I had more time. The spell is supposed to last years, keeping my legs in prime condition, but time in the desert…-_ Darcy looked down at her tentacles and grimaced. - _I didn’t think anyone would notice me gone._ -

“They didn’t. Foster did,” he muttered, compelled to look at her tentacles as well. They seemed almost independent of her, wriggling around weakly. 

- _Oh. She hates interrupts to her routine.-_

Between the concern of Dr. Foster for her assistant and Darcy’s honest plea, he was inclined to believe her explanation. But it didn’t explain what she was doing _here_. “What was the plan, then? Come here, rip your legs off and… what?”

- _What was **your** plan, butting in on a private moment?_\- Darcy replied with a scowl before arching her eyebrow and leaning towards him once again. - _I don’t have to sign. I could sing and twist you up…_ -

Another laugh escaped Clint, a twisted ache already in his chest as he was both terrified and _intrigued_ with her, damn it. He had a long history with that particular blend of dangerous and beautiful. Sidestepping that particularly bad idea, he said, “Well, you’re definitely convincing me that I should gag you and pack you up right now… let Coulson deal with you.”

Darcy’s eyes widened, the first hint of fear he’d seen in her. She pinched her hands consistently. _No. No. No._ She slid to the edge of the water, ready for flight. Clint grabbed her reedy wrist and felt the room tilt.

_Jellyfish. A sea of blue ones that surrounded him. He brushed a hand against one, it’s tendrils disappearing like smoke, and could hear an echo of a memory. Laughter and music, a brass horn tooting along with a quick beat of drum._

Her wrist slipped out from his fingers and he wheezed, the jellyfish scattering instantly from his vision. By the time he’d gathered his wits - it was damned stupid that his guard kept creeping down - instinct had his bow in his hand, half drawn, and Darcy was peeking at him from behind the large rock littered with the flesh that had half melted into nothing.

- _They know what we are and use us, or they don’t and kill us._ -

Clint frowned, barely able to read her expression over the rock, her motions were almost concealed. “So we’re at an impasse. You can’t leave here in your current... condition. I can’t leave you here knowing about… this.”

Darcy shrugged, remaining behind the rock. He waited, expecting some sort of response, and it was such an unusual situation that he couldn’t guess what to expect. She settled in to lean her head on her arms, eyes not leaving his form.

It looked like they had some time.

“Where’d you learn to sign?” he asked after a long moment, forcing himself to relax.

Darcy clapped her hands twice. - _School_. _-_

“They teach ASL in, uh, Atlantis?” Clint asked, guessing at an underwater name.

- _D. U. H._ -

“But why?”

- _Loose lips sink ships_.- Darcy signed. Clint chuckled, used to an entirely different interpretation of the expression, but considering her talents...

- _You really aren’t going to leave?_ -

“Nope,” he said with a wry smile. 

- _Fine_. _Then be useful._ \- She pushed away from her rock with a huff, disappearing under the surf. While the words seemed ominous, her consistent signing had eased the last bit of fear in Clint’s chest. Darcy didn’t seem to want to tangle him against his will. 

He leaned over the water, wondering where she went. A moment later and Darcy reappeared near him, holding the lost vial. Uncorking it, a glowing shell fell out of it into her palm.

“What is that?” he asked. Darcy quirked a brow at him. Drifting back, she lowered the shell under the water and he expected her to sign in response… but she held her hand out.

The invitation was clear. 

_Come and find out_.

Clint hesitated. He had already botched this entire job, entirely caught up in the mystery of her, but she _had_ refused to control him, the song calling him forward earlier done in ignorance to his arrival. He found himself convinced of her sincerity, despite all of his training yelling at him to know better. Curiosity burned in his chest, clean of her influence, and he dropped his bow.

Her eyebrows raised, a finger going to her lips that she swung out. - _Sure?_ -

Clicking on the straps of his vest, he shook it off with his jacket before pulling at the back of his somehow dry shirt. Darcy’s eyes widened, unashamedly eyeing his physique. Sitting down, he unlaced his boots and pulled them off. It was a decidedly _bad_ idea to follow her into the water.

But Clint really _did_ like bad ideas.

Kneeling at the edge, he used signs himself. - _No funny business_.-

Darcy laughed, the sound low and lyrical, making Clint a smidge dizzy.

- _No funny business.-_ she agreed before holding her hand out.

He took a bracing breath, hoping this didn’t bite him in the ass, and reached down for her hand. Their fingers entwined and she tugged him down, down, down.

_Jellyfish were everywhere and he felt cocooned in song. Darcy swam around him, hums soft and… careful?_

_“We all have a way we organize our memories, no? I just happen to see them this way. I won’t take anything, just copy what I need,” she sang. “You have many useful memories. You were in the circus?”_

_Clint felt sluggish in the water, holding his breath he was sure he needed. She spun around him, peering into each jellyfish gently. He could almost feel her rummage through his thoughts, but it was nothing like in those dark days when he no longer knew himself._

_The memory of laughter and circus sounds rang again and she smiled, making a passing motion over it to create a new pink jellyfish. He could see the handfuls of pink ones... how long had he been like this?_

_“Only a few minutes. Don’t worry, you’ll survive,” Darcy winked at him. “Lone humans usually returned unharmed, although no one believed them. It’s the ships of men who would mutiny in their haste to reach us, damning themselves by tearing their ships apart themselves.”_

_So she **was** a siren? Weren’t sirens more mermaid in appearance? Clint frowned at the tentacles that seemed to come alive under the water. They had a beauty to them, causing Darcy to flutter more than glide._

_“Sure, ‘siren’ works. We are bound by our talents, not our shell. So while you may be a bit alarmed at my form, it’s nothing unusual.” Darcy sang it with a casual attitude, peering into another blue jellyfish. “Ohhh, trampoline work. Very useful.”_

_Why would she be so interested in his life? Especially one from so long ago._

_“Memory holds blueprints of movement. I need to program my new legs so I don’t, y'know, stand out,” she said in song, conjuring more pink jellyfish. “If Arielle hadn’t been such an impatient little hussy, she would have learned it without any strings attached. It’s not like she was the only explorer. But I guess that makes a less interesting story.”_

_Clint’s head spun, wondering how many sea folk travelled aboveland and Darcy laughed. “Not many. It’s dangerous work.”_

_He frowned. Couldn’t she use her singing abilities to avoid danger?_

_“When I’m unskinned, probably. When I regain my legs? Not so much,” she shrugged, poking at the shell. “It diverts all of that power into balance, walking, climbing, dancing…”_

_Then you need a human host to emulate?_

_“No, I can build them off my own memory, it’s just a much slower process… I really should have warned Jane with an actual vacation, but well, losing my feet at work kind of expedited the process,” she replied, waving a hand at the jellyfish around. “This is truly harmless.”_

_Secrets aren’t harmless._

_Darcy hummed in resigned agreement and prodded at a dark blue jellyfish, almost black in appearance. Clint grimaced, feeling all of his secret, bleak thoughts of Loki’s possession there. “Perhaps. They do tend to fester.” Then she moved along, gathering the pink jellyfish. Darcy coaxed them closer to the shell. They slowly shrank and entered inside as she was holding it, glimmering as it absorbed each one._

_She held it up, smiling at him. “Isn’t it marvelous?”_

_Clint was too distracted at the way her hair shined from the light, her expression awed._

_You’re marvelous._

_Darcy’s eyes snapped to his. “Thank you,” she said, pressing close up to his chest. “I won’t forget this.”_

_Neither will I._

_Darcy laughed as she swam near and he felt punch-drunk, feeling tentacles gently twirl against his waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck, smiling and leaned close. Her lips pressed against his and the water swirled furiously around them in a bloom of light._

_After the light faded, Clint could feel Darcy’s hands on his face, holding his lips to her own, somehow offsetting his need for oxygen. Legs were wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his back, and he chased her lips hungrily. Breathing seemed secondary to the sheer need overwhelming him and his hands grasped at any skin he could purchase. Darcy clung to him as he kicked them up towards the surface._

_Breaking through the water was a whole new awakening, closing the echo of song from his thoughts, leaving just straight desire pulsing through his body. Trailing kisses down her jawline as he gasped for breath, kicking his feet to blindly search through the surf for an edge, any hard surface to cage her against, press into her._

_This was the best bad decision he’d made in a while._

_Clint blindly found a boulder to grab and with a rush of water trapped Darcy tightly against it. Her fingers were in his hair, legs slowly unfurling from his waist, but he gripped her thighs to hold her close. Dragging his lips back up to her mouth, he stroked his tongue against her own and she moaned. Her hands tightened in his hair, tugging him back. He groaned in denial but pulled back, eyes going instantly to her lips._

_“No funny business,” she sang in a soft voice. Desire still beat through him, warring with the rejection. Her song was louder but less potent, a lullaby._

_“Sleep.” Darcy’s voice insisted. Clint gripped at her shoulders, wanting to argue, to fight the command, but failed. The lullaby rocked him into darkness._

Brightness pierced through Clint’s closed eyes and he brought an arm over them to shield from it. An uncomfortable heat started prickling on his skin and he grumbled, finding his thoughts waking up despite wanting to remain swaddled in the dream.

_Darcy._

Clint jolted up, disoriented, finding himself in the driver’s seat of his car. The morning sun was shining merrily through his window, framing the sparkling sea against the bright beach.

Turning, he saw her car was missing.

Scrambling for his phone that was resting on the dash, he noted it was only the next morning, almost noon. An icon was blinking on the edge, a voicemail.

 _“Hey, Agent Barton, I was just calling to call off the search. Sorry that I raised the alarm too soon. Darcy lost her phone on her way home and came in early to argue with the tech guys, trying to get it fixed…”_ the apologetic voice of Jane Foster continued but Clint stopped listening, dropping the phone.

Ripping open his door, he jumped down the rocky stairs in his haste to reach the beach. Running caused his breath to burn in his chest, trying to retrace the path he’d taken the stormy night prior. Curling around the edge of the cove, his eyes wildly scanned the rest of the beach.

No cave.

Clint momentarily pondered the idea of climbing along the coast. Test the rocks, see if there was a weakness anywhere. But it seemed like a futile effort. Darcy had covered her tracks.

Hadn’t she?

Memories of the night before still filtered in, muddled but there. If she truly had wanted to hide her secret, wouldn’t she have pulled them out of his memory?

Climbing back into his car, Clint had a whole drive home to mull over it.

On the way back, Coulson called him up to scold him for his ‘unnecessary excursion’. Natasha followed up almost immediately after, kindly probing into his state of mind, which he didn’t particularly wish to discuss.

“ _So you’re telling me you missed her at her home and chased after a stolen cell phone for hours._ ” The words were so incredulous, Clint couldn’t actually blame Natasha. How indeed.

“ _Must have, Nat,”_ was all he could say. The truth was too ludicrous to claim without more investigation. 

By the time he was back at base, it was dusk and his mood was foul. He could roll with looking incompetent - it definitely wasn’t the first time - but Darcy had gotten what she wanted and _left_ him there. Even though he had agreed to help her, unable to resist his curiosity, Clint felt badly used.

It was like he’d been discarded.

But curiosity still burned in him, wondering how much of the intrigue was fabricated, how would he pass her in the halls knowing how she felt wrapped around him? Not to mention the intimate thoughts she’d glanced over. He was returning the car to the garage when he realized he _wanted_ to know all of it, and more. The thought was so surprising, he almost tripped over Steve changing the oil on his motorcycle.

“Heard you had a bit of a flop,” Steve said, a smile on his lips with grime on his cheek.

“That’s one way to put it,” Clint grumbled.

Steve stood up, wiping his hands on a rag. “As long as you know the team is here if you’re ever in over your head...”

The gesture, kind in only a way Steve Rogers’ could manage, rankled against Clint’s pride, but he shrugged it off. “Happens,” he heard himself say as he quickly left the room. Was _everyone_ going to remind him of his presumed failure at finding Darcy?

Darcy was the answer, to see how she’d slid the truth around to avoid detection, to see what sort of idiot she’d made him out to be. After all, he knew the importance of a cover. In his gloomy distraction, he nearly walked directly into Tony in the open atrium. The man took one look up and down of Clint and smirked.

“Deprivation does bad things to us, friend,” Tony said, clapping him on the shoulder before continuing on. “Give yourself a hand!”

Usually Clint could brush Stark’s comments aside, but he had to take a moment to contain his frustration. Which was worse? Multiple jabs at his work capabilities or sexual innuendos from Stark? Didn’t matter, both were tied to his ego which was smarting something fierce.

A laugh could be heard above him on the second story walkway. Looking up, Clint saw Darcy following after Dr. Foster. She looked completely normal, wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, hands full of documents that her eyes were firmly glued to.

She didn’t even notice him.

 _That_ kicked Clint into movement, taking the stairs up three at a time. He’d had hours in the car to ponder over what the fuck that encounter in the cave was. She was right here. No better time than the present to find out.

The pair navigated to the cafeteria, obviously grabbing a late dinner. By the time he followed them there, they were seated in a corner with Thor already through one of his trays. Clint immediately crossed the room to take a chair across from Darcy.

“Clinton, my friend!” Thor greeted. “I have heard of the journey you undertook at the behest of Jane-” Jane choked on the drink she was taking. Darcy swallowed her bite, eyes wide.

“Agent Barton, I am _so sorry_ that you dragged yourself all the way to-” Jane began with a raspy throat, coughing to clear her voice.

“Jane, you were rightly concerned-”

Clint ignored Thor and Jane’s chatter. Instead, he focused on Darcy, hands speaking. - _You fucked up. I remember everything._ -

The rambling ceased but Clint was fixated by the bottom lip that Darcy began to worry with her teeth. Darting a glance at Jane, Darcy turned back to him to move her hands in response. - _I said I would copy, not take. I trust you._ -

“Wait, are you _signing_..?” Jane asked her, while Clint’s brain tripped over the word _trust_. A dangerous concept in his line of work.

Darcy ignored Jane as well, wearing a rueful expression. _-I thought you’d want it this way. Easier to forget. You’d return to knowing me as a nobody from the labs. I’d know you as…-_

Clint knocked his chair back with how quickly he stood up, stopping Darcy mid-sign. She looked uncertain. He could feel Jane and Thor staring at him, confused yet interested in the drama. Not to mention the curious peers from the other handful of agents and scientists in the cafeteria.

But Clint didn’t care much.

He liked bad ideas.

So he leaned down and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed it! I hope I did ASL justice with the various ways of how expression and movement all work together with the language - looking into it was very interesting but there is SO much I'm clueless to.
> 
> I was introduced to Charlie Hunnam as a fancast for Clint Barton and I just absolutely adore it, so that's why he's in the moodboard. 😅
> 
> Thank you for reading. 💗


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